Help. German Pils low color & low bitterness (underwhelmed)

You may have gotten a bad crush. Sometimes home brew shops run so much grain that their mills begin to get out of adjustment. One side gap will be smaller than the other sides gap. The grain on the more open end does not get crushed very well.

I have a friend that does no sparge, and he does not get very good efficiency. He compensates by adding extra malt.
Your water profile also looks a bit off, but I am not a water expert. I usually use RO water and add a bit of calcium chloride to get my calcium levels up to about 50 ppm. I don't think you want to add Chalk or Epsom salt to get soft water.

I do think your gravity numbers are pretty good though. 1.044 should make great summer drinking beer, and I think your beer will also taste better with a few weeks of lagering.

 

I don't have any alkalinity in my Pilsners. The MG from the Epsom salts is probably OK, I did not run the ppg levels.

I use a lot more hops later in the boil to get the hop flavor and aroma I want from a German Pils.

 

" I don't think you want to add Chalk or Epsom salt to get soft water."

I agree

 

I thought that your water looked a little off. I'd be wanting soft as hell, and my Bo Pils comes out really, really nice. Pils Urquell like. Pretty much my childhood memory of sipping them.

 

Pics?

 

I wonder if overpitching could have been a contributing factor as well? According to Jamil you get a lot of character during the yeast growth phase. Even lagers can benefit from this growth phase. Granted you're not looking for fruity esters or what not like from an ale yeast, but you still get a bit of contributing character that could potentially cause the beer to taste nondescript if it is missing. That combined with the water profile which may subdue malt and/or hop character could certainly lead to a "bland" pilsner.

I don't think the color is out of the ordinary considering the grain bill. Any predominately pilsner malt-based beer will be pale yellow in color in my experience.

 

Any chance that it's due to the slightly undermodified nature of the floor-malted (vs. normal) pils malt? Perhaps you would have had better luck utilizing a step mash (with protein rest and another rest around 144-146F) instead of just the 90 min at 151?

 

Could be you extracted less fermentable sugars mashing at that temp. See below:

Beta Amylase 130 - 150°F 5.0 - 5.6 Produces small, highly fermentable sugars.
Alpha Amylase 155 - 167°F 5.3 - 5.8 Produces larger, less fermentable sugars

When I brew my Koelsch, I mash typically between 144-146F, and, although I use the more modified regular Weyermann pils malt, I get a good depth of maltiness.

 

A German pils should have a decent hop bite. You'll need a bit more hops I think than 0.5 oz at 15 and 1 min. I'd think about doubling those additions.

I agree your water profile is also off. Take out everything but the gypsum and go from there. If your alkalinity is too high you'll need to dilute or acidify your water.

 

Bo Pils yes, German Pils no.

 

German pils is a tough style. I had to do it 4-5 times before I was happy with mine. Some observations, for whatever they're worth:

Just eyeballing this, it looks like your hop additions were on the light side, and your OG was a little low. I like to shoot for about 10-15% higher in both IBUs and OG. Also, I like to add a little munich, which will give the malt base a bit more character (and give the beer a slightly darker color). Also, without running it through a calculator, it looks like your water additions would produce water that's relatively hard for the style. Generally, I shoot for relatively soft water with a decent sulphate presence: something around 50ppm Ca and around 90 SO4.

I'm sure you know that this is a style where it's particularly important to have fresh, high quality ingredients, so I doubt you had a problem with stale hops of low quality malt. Most likely, a few minor adjustments to the recipe will make all the difference.

 

I took note that the OP mentioned "Pilsner Floor Malted 2L"; I am assuming this is from Weyermann.

I have never brewed with Weyermann Floor Malted Pilsner malt. Is this malt sufficiently modified for a single infusion mash? Should a step mash been conducted instead?

Cheers!

 

The floor malted Weymerann malt should be fine. I just made a Czech pils with it, using a single infusion, and it turned out pretty well. (Could've used a little more bittering hops maybe, but the malt base tastes very good.)

One other thought just crossed my mind: how long did you lager? I've had some pilsners that weren't very impressive on first tasting, but which just got better and better as they aged/lagered in the keg. I know people say 6 weeks should be fine for a pils, but in my experience they are much better at about 10 weeks. If this one hasn't lagered for at least two months, don't get rid of it: let it lager another month and reevaluate.